Joy Of Innovation

Close to the heels of Indo-Japanese Nanotech initiative and Nano Technology Conclave 2008, the Iran India Joint Conference on Nanotechnology(IIJCN) is all set for Apr 27 - 29 2008. The conference is to be held in Tehran, Iran and is organized by Tehran University of Medical Science, and is co-sponsored by Iran Nano-Technology Initiative.
I came to know about the conference during the Nanotech Conclave 2008 presentation by Prof Ali Beitollahi heading the Iran Nano Technology Infrastructure Development Committee. Prof Beitollahi says there are more than 57 companies in Iran involved in nano tech activities of which 20 have successful
products till date. Iran Nano tech business network is a good place to start exploring about their offerings. They have a nano tube production unit with - 20kg/day output.
They make their own Scanning Tunneling microscope and export them too. A Nano additive for petrol makes it greener. They do Stem cell research and have made advances in cellular nano scaffolding.

Responding to the question of how resources gets shared, Prof Beitollahi recounted how every research group wants their own machinery and control them with lock and key. To encourage sharing, the Iran Nano Initiative has devised a incentive program that makes more funding available based on sharing score. Even service offered by technicians are included in the scoring and surprisingly and very interestingly, the incentive program works. Yet another reason to go to the conference at Tehran and see for yourself how it works!

Here is a segment from the conference website that caught my eyes:

So strong is the Persian aptitude for versifying everyday expressions that one can encounter poetry in almost every classical work, whether from Persian literature, science, or metaphysics. For example, almost half of Avicenna’s medical writings are known to be versified. Works of the early era of Persian poetry are characterized by strong court patronage, an extravagance of panegyrics, and what is known as سبک فاخر (”exalted in style”).

“Love’s nationality is separate from all other religions,
The lover’s religion and nationality is the Beloved (God).
The lover’s cause is separate from all other causes.
Love is the astrolabe of God’s mysteries”.—Rumi.

Nanotech is verse of different kind and Iran India Joint Conference on Nanotech will showcase some of the gems of that kind for sure.

Further, Mr Ali Morteza Birang, Attache, Head of Technology Cooperation Section, Embassy of Iran at New Delhi will be happy to provide additional information and coordination for the event. He can be reached by email birang at gmail dot com.

The most inspiring session at Nano Tech Conclave was the talk by Dr Arup Chatterjee CEO, I-CANNano.

I-CanNano’s success story thus far is a case of applying cutting edge technology to an age old commodity product - the humble paint and coatings. The fundamental change in material characteristics translates as benefits like scratch resistance, less corrosion, longer life etc. At the coating front, the automotive glass coated with I-CanNano coating makes it more transparent under rain conditions. The water droplets run off due to the smoothness of the surface thereby increasing the clarity.

They have applied their nano material knowledge to fine tune different properties like, transparency, thermal or electrical conductivity, corrosion resistance, scratch resistance, etc and perfected the production method to industrial scale.

Interestingly, they undertake collaborative contract research too. This is a good thing, they are not stuck with product mindset or too carried away by service mindset( the bane of IT boom). Surely I-CanNano and its founder Dr Arup Chatterjee are worth watching and tracking. His team is poised to be the Infosys of Indian nano-tech!

I got invited to the CII Member Fellowship Evening organized by CII Southern Region.
Three speakers representing varied background and interest were lined up.

C K Prahlad was first to go. He started with ‘I’m going to disappoint many of you – I’m not going to talk about BoP’ instead CKP talked about his upcoming book to be released in April.
C K Prahalad wasted no time drawing the audience towards Next practices rather than Best practices. Underlying theme being: Innovate the innovation process itself. Fundamental shift in paradigm from Firm Centric view to customer centric – dealing with customers one at a time. He made a powerful illustration citing the case of Build a Bear – a specialty store where children can custom build their teddy bear. Where the ingredients of making a teddy bear are assembled Just in Time with the ultimate end user fully involved. Very Agile indeed. The teddy is Given a Life by the child with a heart, a sound effect and an external style with whole nine yards of birth certificate and a promise to be the best friend to the teddy. For the parent and the child pair, it is not the product, it is the experience -an opportunity to co-create is central to the experience. For the store, there is a significant reduction in total SKUs and the SKUs in the inventory are in synergy. Further there is opportunity to up sell merchandise like sports tees and accessories enhancing the experience for the child and revenue for the store with very high profit margins.

With this, C K Prahalad asked the industry captains: Why are you not pitching your biz this( customer experience centric) way? Why pitch by cost, quality and response time efficiency?

C K Prahalad went on to illustrate the point with more serious/life critical example - pace maker expert monitoring. With pace-makers, there is not much point in arguing about quality. Here the opportunity for value creation is outside the product as such – ability to monitor state of your heart by remote expert, totally personalized. [Alluding to how Medtronic - long time market leader in pace-maker woke up to effect CareLink]. Under special circumstances, different service partners are to be activated( articulated as CKP likes to put it) to deal with the situation. Sometimes the local hospital is involved, some times an ambulance is involved and of course some times the priest gets involved! Reinforcing the concept of customer centric, fulfillment one customer at a time personalized to fit his/her context well.

C K Prahalad formulates serving one customer at a time as N=1. In order to service this one customer like this, a whole lot of reliably working partnerships are to be forged. It invariably will have to scale globally like it or not. This if formulated as R=G( Resource = Global. Or simply as I see it - Radius of operation = Global ). This is what OnStar by GM did to high end cars monitor special conditions and articulate service partners to respond to customer’s specific situational need. To a lesser extent by Dell to assemble a computing hardware of your choice by N=1 and R=G.

The key characteristic of a The Firm serving N=1 with R=G are:
Node within a global web.
Personalized Experiences
Co-creation
Celebration of Individual
Thematic experience.
Delivery Network.
Li & Fung is an example of 100 year old US$10b trading company illustrative of ‘Platform Play’ success. Netflix, Google, Amazon are other examples cited.
Obviously this is going to be capital intensive and highly IT intensive says CKP. Thanks to the India growth story, capital is within reach. And IT is abundant in India. Why are we just using it to make others rich and competitive? With that challenge, he went on to question if Science is the way to do Innovation?
There was a quick run-through of palletized biomass fuel powered smokeless stove. The stove will free the rural women folks from smoke and soot exposure. IISc folks pitched in with ceramic coating. Like that a whole lot of resources were used to assemble the stove and the supply chain around it. Millions of pieces are deployed in India and it is getting deployed in other developing markets. BP the sponsor of the project got entry into consumer space that too at the base of the pyramid. The R=G is kind of obvious here but the N=1 eludes me. Perhaps I need to check the case study in detail.

For me, with Social Media familiarity made me easily relate to what C K Prahalad was talking about to the point of wondering if the YouTube like democratization( N=1 + Affordable = Democratization, unlike say OnStar) play out in physical space more intensely and much faster than anticipated.

PS: I attended an Agile event on the same day. I found it bit ironic that Old School industries are emulating user centric Agile like tech success stories. And in Agile the good old manufacturing best practices are gaining new currency.

The Feb08 edition of Open Coffee Club Chennai, was very different. Instead of the usual rant about not able to hire developers and such, we welcomed student Entrepreneurs and wannabes.

As part of Entrepreneurship Week organized and celebrated by NEN(National Entrepreneurship Network), the students form different educational institutions attended OCC. Proto.in is the link that actually connected the OCC with NEN. OCC regulars were surprised and amused by the concept of taking a pledge part of the NEN E-week awareness campaign. After taking the pledge, it felt good and you need to start somewhere!
Call it Abdul Kalam effect, here is how it goes( with a badge to wear too):

Today, I renew my pledge to an Entrepreneurial India. I WILL…
Break Barriers between Industry and Academia.
Regularly include Entrepreneurs, investors and professionals in the campus programs.
Find innovative was for students to experience industry before graduation.
Facilitate Faculty interaction with the industry.
Work to bring the discoveries of the lab into society.
Innovate in my work.
Consider working for startup companies.
Change my thinking from “Why” to “Why not?”.
Continue always to dream big and work to bring those dreams to reality.
Encourage and support others so that we all might live in richer, better India.

I happen to interact with students from National Institute of Fashion Design specializing on retail management. They amazed me with aspiration to build a retail chain brand. They were pretty clued and listening. For example Neha one of them, was very clear that she does not want to get into the production aspect but want to get into the branding and brand building. I was bit surprised that their blogging awareness is low and hands on experience with social media near zero( at least as a biz tool). I was too happy to point to Thomas the Saville Row tailor that leveraged blogging and other social media tools to expand his biz of making $4000 suits.

In another interaction, there was this question, “If you are a Startup, if by helping me to succeed as a Startup, are you not creating competition to yourself?” which stems form inexperience. Outlined the virtues of sharing, and how sharing is the best networking tool that will attract the right complementary pieces of your biz’s jig saw towards you like a magnet.

It was good to re-connect with the regulars. Surprisingly I did not talk about SecondLife to any of the newbies. There were questions/interest about next AWS meetup.

The meeting took place at the Woodlands DriveIn. Overall it was fun and refreshing.

From twitter I got an update from sig tipping about his new blog post on how SAP is missing its biggest opportunity. Reading and commenting on it I was not able to resist. But sadly, the typepad did not publish my comment the first time and couple of other attempts. So here is the full post for the context.

SAP Influencer Summit #3 - SAP missing the biggest opportunity ever

I believe that SAP is missing an opportunity to more than double their market, in the same space with the same customers, still for business processes, in a new market segment that is amazingly virgin with virtually no competition, and where the customers are only waiting for the first products.

How’s that possible? Well, allow me:

A Business Process is any process, sequential work or activity, that happens in an organisation. Some are repeatable and linear, others happens in unstructured ways and are hard to model.

Let me keep it simple and divide process types into two groups:

1. The Easily Repeatable Process (ERP for me)

Processes that handles resources, from human (hiring, firing, payroll and more) to parts and products through supply chains, distribution and production. The IT systems go under catchy names like ERP, SCM, PLM, SRM, CRM and the biggest players are as we know SAP and Oracle plus a long roster of smaller firms.

Known to be rigid, but handles events and transactions with precision and in volume. Systems delivers value through extensive reports and full control over resources.

Resource oriented, transactional, event driven systems. Delivered by system vendors with roots in accounting using up to 25 year old technological solutions.

A mature market segment where an upgrade from version 7.0 to 7.1 would not deliver much in productivity growth for the customer so much of the vendor growth stems from finding new customers for the same solutions.

2. The Barely Repeatable Process (BRP)

Typically exceptions to the ERPs, anything that involves people in non-rigid flows through education, health, support, government, consulting or the daily unplanned issues that happens in every organisation. The activities that employees spend most of their time on every day. Processes that often starts with an e-mail or a call. A process volume, measured by time and resource spent at organisations, probably larger than for the Easily Repeatable Processes.

These are mostly handled and organised - frameworked - by systems like paper based rules and policies, e-mail, meetings, calls and now in more modern organisations by wikis and other collaboration systems and methods.

Known by extensive loss of information (e-mails residing on HDDs), little knowledge acquired and reused (typical research says 70% of problems solved before without being known) and most of all, untrustworthy processes (oops, forgot to send that mail). In other words not an iota (well almost) of business process thinking or methodology applied to this huge untapped area of business processes.

Requires a different conceptual representation of the processes and data than the transactional linear processes so this would require a technological shift from the current.

A truly virgin market segment where even installing a humble wiki would increase productivity measurably. And most important, a market where the customers are yearning for solutions.

The big question: Why does not SAP spend almost all of it’s R&D funding in the BRP space? It would make utterly, completely, undisputed sense.

Now folks, this situation puzzles me so much that I need some help; is there a glitch in my logic? Good folks at SAP, prove me wrong or right!

[Sidenote: Obviously BRPs is what thingamy can handle nicely, but I'm not afraid of some competition at all so come on ye big enterprise software vendors, I'm waiting! ;)]

Here is the comment that needs to go with the post:

Is not the big ERP vendors the wrong tree to bark? At least when the market is virgin as you say. Each of the BRP will get addressed by a niche vendor perhaps in SaaS model. For instance, to organize an event( say an unconference) there are several options right from a wiki to some really cool services that handle the messy payments refunds, tour booking along with the event etc.
In time these vendors will offer the bridge to import/export information from/to these niche solutions.
When these services become one too many and fragmented, big vendors will integrate them in their good old ERP and everyone is happy.

The course you are suggesting will commodify ERP more rapidly. Which might shrink growth and profits.

An Aside,when Chris Gay of Milemeter asked about helping develop an accounting package for auto insurance by the mile, I was wondering if thingamy is the way to go. I got muddled while at it. Not able to go beyond the high level match of thingamy and milemeter. Any clues pointers out of the muddle welcome.

SearchCamp.in: Is there a rescue camp around?

Originally uploaded by labsji

SearchCamp.in is the most serious of the events yet by Knowledge Foundation. It was Search Engine Marketing/Search Engine Optimization experts talking to each other in their own jargons at very high speed. Here is an example of sage advice on how to make loads of money by SEO SEM: Build a startup that disrupts, dis-intermediates traditional media purchase! Go for an IPO, liquidity event at 35x profits - you are home! Oh that was useful take away that I’m going to put to use right now right away. Ha!

There were other interesting and useful sessions too!
Bonus Links:
On Mahesh Murthy - Pinstorm by Rajesh Kumar

Sagaro’s Left and Right take on SEO/SEM
Dino with Attitude’s take on SearchCamp -

Update1: Badri of Nrich who has recently signed up for Google JumpStart package is Disappointed with SearchCamp.
Bonus Bonus Link:
It was wonderful to meet Joythirmayee part of iRead facebook success story - ( If you approach her nicely perhaps you can sway her into working for your startup!)

Quote of the Day: Tidel Park’s PR manager: What is Google? via Kriba.

Question of the Day: By Geroge Tai, Obamboo Inc: If SEO/SEM service providers are profitable, why are they not listed in NASDAQ or any other stock exchange?

Hugh MacLeod on Social Objects: “From Now on, If your marketing does not have Social Objects, It is Junk…“
I’m experimenting with the idea of Tree as a social object. Me teaming up with Stottpot is part of the plan!

By
Evelyn Rodriguez

I happen to visit IfraExpo India 2007 as part of checking out how my client, Universal Print System(Showcasing SCREEN CTP) is doing out there. My main motivation for visiting Ifra expo is to check out how Newspaper as an industry is coping up with the onslaught of the New Media and Social Tools. As a card carrying member of Social Media fan club with active interest in Wiki and SecondLife I was looking forward to the Ifra Newsplex showcase at the Expo. Ifra Newsplex is grounded in the philosophy of convergence of multiple media platforms and strives to

• Getting the theory of convergence into practice so that your newsroom is able to generate ready-to-go content for your audience
• Keeping the audience close to the brand by supporting newspapers that generate content the audience seek
• Enriching the art of journalism by using multimedia approaches
• Building up a long-lasting relationship with the audience that is based on communication and interaction.

In short Newsplex is how a typical Newsroom will be in the future. Add an element of ‘Future is Now’ - you get the idea. But, I was kind of disappointed see a small stall with a few laptops( supposedly loaded with podcasting and vodcasting tools) showcased as Newsplex. Of course, the disappointment was more than made up by Dr. Dietmar Schantin, Director of Newsplex’s enlightening presentation and subsequent offline conversation.

He shared his experience in transforming the news team of The Telegraph into Convergnet Media team in one go! The magnitude of the task can be better appreciated if you note that seizable number of team were to be won over to see the online trend as opportunity rather than a threat. And brought up to the speed of podcasting and vlogging as part of their daily routine. It was insightful to learn that it is not Technology but it is all about People.

Throughout the history of Computing and Communication Technology, News organizations were early embracers. With that in mind, I was expecting edgy social media tools like SecondLife put to good use in futuristic Newsroom like Newsplex. From the conversation with Dr Dietmar Schantin it is clear that even Wikis are not widely used. With my recent Citizen Journalism submission experience in fresh in memory I was ranting about how The Hindu could have easily routed the ‘Longtail’ submissions( Read submissions not fitting constraints set for print/online publications) like mine to a Wiki.

A wiki approach will immensely benefit shaping up of a News story as multiple people are collaborating to evolve it, validate it and render it in multiple forms. I can swear by it given our wonderful Wiki2Booklet experience.
I am kind of very surprised that despite having the biggest asset( the Community) Newspaper et al are slow adopter of social tools either for its own reinvention or consumer engagement.

Bonus Links:
Web 2.0 - a threat or opportunity for newspapers
A social media tutorial at Ifra Summer University.

A Wholesome Multidimensional Experience
Nine Hills One Valley by Chorus Repertory Theater performed at the MetroPlus Theatre Fest was indeed a Multidimensional experience. Here are the highlights of three of interwoven threads that many would be able to easily relate. The play was an intense mix of wholesome entertainment, a crash course on management, and a deeply subtle yogic spiritual process.
Wholesome Entertainment

The performance blended several samples from the traditional and contemporary Manipuri culture to create an immersion into a culture at crossroads. The viewers were settled down during the buildup that showcased spread of the evil. The wailing and the treadmill effects – so familiar in everyday experience - was employed to draw the viewer into the play. The scene depicting the cutting of wrists of Raas Leela performers enabled total immersion. The magical composition of cast, color and cloths reinforced with myriad theatrical elements made the immersion total.
The encounter of the men of wisdom with men of the modern times brought out the satirical and the comic streak within Rathan Thiyam who indeed directed the play. United States invasion of Iraq and the consequent ‘pissing off’ of the locals/Arabs was deftly portrayed within couple of seconds in the most funny manner. A muted mumbling English accent was effectively used to take a dig at the vagueness and chaos of modern times. Inundation by newsprints, with an obsession to report the death and destruction, served as a fitting ambiance to enhance the satire.
Soothing chants and music inter spread with graceful dance and movements amplified by color and costume made the performance a wholesome entertainment.

Crash Course on Enterprise Management

Nine Hills One Valley was not just a entertaining performance but also a demonstrative crash course on business management. For starters, it was 5S in action all the way throughout the play. The play brought out the essence of management buzzwords without uttering them explicitly. Here is a subset of elements covered in the crash course:
Organizational structure. In a typical business organization, the structures created for easy management invariably creates conflicts and inefficiency. In the play, the flexible partitioning effected through light demonstrated the harmony between the parts and the whole. The technique can be directly applied to harmonize the core teams and the support teams and manage the interplay between the visible and the latent.
Leadership In a scene one of the seven men of wisdom wore the blanket in contrast to the rest of the wise men highlighting his leadership. In many real life situations, the contrast between the leader and the rest of the team players is even more trivial. Yet, the contrast is a constant source of conflict and heartburns. The scene could help teams to put leadership in perspective.
Virtualization The pageant of modern men interestingly marked by out of tune zombie walk is a case of effecting more with less.
People and process The execution of the play itself is a celebration of people tuned to process. There were elements of people and process in the content of the play too. Like the traditional practice of use of dhanda ( serpent headed staff in the play) to externalize knowledge and wisdom. And using the staff to rewrite the wisdom in a form suitable for contemporary society.
Passion and Return on Investment. The play demonstrates the link between passion and high degree of attention to details. And the interlink between passion and exponential returns. The transformational touch of the play is the exponential return effected with sparse resources with good measure of passion thrown in.
Homework, Homework, Homework. Elaboration unnecessary. Enough Said.
On the whole, Nine Hills One Valley as a crash course in management is a compelling value proposition in terms of both value for money and value for time spent. It will beat buzzword peddling consultant mentors hands down any day! A key takeaway question from the course: When something as permanent as culture and tradition needs conscious renewal, how can businesses afford stagnation?

An Exposition of Spiritual Progress

Nine Hills One Valley is a Manipuri play. Yet, the language barrier proved to be an advantage to experience the exposition of spiritual progression expressed through yogic symbolisms shared across Indian cultures. The play is a vivid portrayal of the ill effects of disconnecting from the wisdom ingrained in culture and tradition. The portrayal explored the natural cycle of cultural reconnection and rejuvenation. The seven men of wisdom( symbolized by serpent headed staff) undertake a sadhana that wakes them from slumber and makes them transcend the ocean of life. The sadhana - inter spread with penance, chanting, fighting off the evils, invocation and reflection - not only leave them transformed, but also makes available the gift of wisdom and hope to the contemporary younger generation.
The play underscores the need for making traditional cultural wisdom relevant to contemporary society. The two way process in which the tradition and the modern meet half way across the bridge was outlined through juxtaposition of modern day angst with elements of grace and harmony quintessential of traditional wisdom.
The yogic symbolism of the palm - the instrument of mudhra that controls the flow of transformational subtle energy( prana) - was employed to illustrate the disconnect from wisdom. The cutting of wrists scene highlights the ill effects of disconnect from wisdom and the plight of traditional culture reduced to soulless ritual.
The performance climaxed with the modern mothers weeping and singing lullabies to their children expressing their modern day fear uncertainty and doubt. They invoked the men of wisdom who showed up in subtle form of light and hope in the valley thereby bringing the sadhana to closure.
For me, the climax was not during the performance but in the post-performance thanks giving ritual. The very graceful thanks giving was a revelation of and moment of connection with the Adi Guru – the energy that dispels darkness and origin of all art forms.

Note: The above review was sent to The Hindu in response to their call for citizen journalism contribution. Other than automated ack, I have not heard anything from them. Makes me wonder if they really ‘Get’ Longtail. A simple wiki would have made all the difference! As part of my client engagement, I’m checking out IfraExpo 2007 - curious to know how the dead tree media copes with the social media onslaught.

ninehilsonevalleyreview.pdf

Update: Looks like the the Newspaper industry is not fast adopter of Social Tools. Ironic given that their biggest asset is Community!